6.1.37 breaks backwards compatibility with HALi?

[dtomcat]

Installed 6.1.37, now all HALi apps do not work. HALi App "Tell me" gives error:
"System Error &H80040111 (-2147221231). ClassFactory cannot supply requested class"


My SiriHalServer does not run either. I'm in the process of installing Visual Studio back onto the HAL system so I can see what is going on, but wanted to give the warning to others.


I'll post more when I know more. Update with caution for now. (this may be a "my system only" issue)


I'm on Windows 8 and the only thing that runs on my system is HAL, Dropbox, TeamViewer, and in a little bit Visual Studio.


-Rob

[dtomcat]

Rebuilding my application worked... Appears maybe HALi.ocx changed? Either way, now I have to find my Tell Me code and rebuild that as well :/

[dtomcat]

Rebuilt Tell Me and works ok again... just had to point it to the new HALi.ocx. program didn't like something changed between old and new?

[DadGoneMad]

I don't think it's your system only. I had HALPro 6.1.35 installed and then Microsoft sent out some patch updates. After installation HALPro Internet Server or HAL Server processes would periodically crash only after a minute or so after starting HALPro. It's very strange because it will crash, watchdog will restart the missing processes, run for a few minutes and then crash again. After about an hour or so of watchdog restarting processes it seems like it stops crashing and will run for a few hours then starts the process of crashing all over again. It didn't do this before Microsoft patches were installed. I then saw that 6.1.37 became available and downloaded/installed. After installation it is actually worse and some processes stop, Watchdog restarts them, but then sometimes I don't get the "ear" icon on my taskbar, or worse I get 30 of them showing until I put my mouse over the taskbar and then they all disappear. I have to manually end each HAL process, then restart HALPro again. It will stay up for a few minutes, then (wash, rinse, repeat) some process stop responding. I suspect that Microsoft patched something that is causing this issue. I've opened a ticket with the helpdesk and hope that someone can connect into my system when I go on vacation for the holiday's next week because it's driving me crazy seeing my log file full of processes missing, restarting over and over again. What did Microsoft do that could be causing this because it didn't happen prior to installing the last round of patches they sent out.

[dtomcat]

I don't think it's the same problem I am having. My issue is only with HALi apps... my actual HALpro runs fine. Sounds bad for you... maybe try removing that patch? either I haven't gotten that patch or it's something that was corrupted on your PC... Sorry :/

[TimShriver]

Can either of you send Mike or Tyler your error log after a crash to review?

[dtomcat]

Tim,
Mine does not through any errors. Only the HALi will through something, but no logs are left in HAL. In the PC's system log I believe I read something that the error is happening when trying to initialize HALi.ocx. Again, once I rebuilt the application with the new OCX supplied, it runs fine. I'm guessing something was changed in the newest OCX that old applications don't know what do. As for Dad's problem... I'm not sure... but his surely must through some errors since HAL itself is crashing.




and as a side note, Tim, Your automatedliving email isn't working... my email attempted to deliver since the day I posted this thread and finally came back as undeliverable.

[TimShriver]

Hi Rob,

Yes HALi required a change that caused use to break compatibility. It turns out the QuickInit routine did not initialize some of the areas it was intended to init. So it was a tough call but we thought it was more important that the init areas outlined in the HALi documentation were actually performed.

We have had a couple of reports from customers regarding HAL after a recent windows update. We are trying to identify the common thread between the 3 reports we have, so more data would be great. What we have tried to collect are the typical HAL configuration information along with the hardware and OS details.

Thank you,

Tim

[TimShriver]

Rob,

Mike suggested that one way to isolate the area of the potential crash would be to disable a number of system settings. If HAL runs fine, then systematically enable those areas again one at a time and restarting HAL to see if one of these settings is causing the issue. Be sure HAL is running fine before trying to enable a setting and be sure to restart HAL after the setting change.

I did this same maneuver months ago and identified a modem issue. Also if you disable the modem be sure to also disable the Telephone ASR under voice recognition...

Tim

[canadauser]

May not be related, but since it's about 6.1.37 I would toss this in..During upgrade got these errors

Error 1800
File open error: c:\program files\hal\data\macro.dbf
could not open marco.dbf exclusive

followed by

Error 1800
File open error: c:\program files\hal\data\irconfig.dbf
could not open irconfig.dbf exclusive

followed by

Installation successful

HAL started up fine

[djewell]

Just upgraded and I had the break with TellMe application. Is it posted anymore for people? I really only used it for Random Text to speech so I configured HAL to do it for me instead. Probably need to update the documentation for random TTS as I couldn't find details on it and fumbled through until I figured it out when I hovered the Random speak check box.

[TimShriver]

"Error 1800
File open error: c:\program files\hal\data\macro.dbf
could not open marco.dbf exclusive"

That indicates that the file was open when you installed HAL. I would close HAL, check task manager to make sure there are no HAL tasks running and reinstall HAL.

Tim

[TimShriver]

Just upgraded and I had the break with TellMe application. Is it posted anymore for people? I really only used it for Random Text to speech so I configured HAL to do it for me instead. Probably need to update the documentation for random TTS as I couldn't find details on it and fumbled through until I figured it out when I hovered the Random speak check box.

Good Point!

[BDD43]

canadauser,

The only time I've seen it have File Open error is when I did not run it as Administrator.
Since yours also states exclusive, it could be that HAL is running. Like others said, I would go into Task Manager and stop anything with HAL listed.

[dtomcat]

I am not home right now. But when I'm back in town, I can package up the new version of Tell Me and provide a link if wanted

[djewell]

Good Point!

Is it possible to get more space for random text to speech? Also is there a way to change the Hal response goodbye to a random exit comment?

[TimShriver]

Is it possible to get more space for random text to speech? Also is there a way to change the Hal response goodbye to a random exit comment?

David,

Great requests... I will make sure both are part of the new 7.0 release.

Regards,

Tim